A ballpoint pen, also known as a biro, ball pen, or dot pen, is a pen that dispenses ink over a metal ball at its point, i.e., over a "ball point". The metals commonly used are steel, brass, or tungsten carbide. The design was conceived and developed as a cleaner and more reliable alternative to dip pens and fountain pens, and it is now the world's most-used writing instrument; millions are manufactured and sold daily. It has influenced art and graphic design and spawned an artwork genre.
Ink is a gel, sol, or solution that contains at least one colorant, such as a dye or pigment, and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing or writing with a pen, brush, reed pen, or quill. Thicker inks, in paste form, are used extensively in letterpress and lithographic printing.
Gouache, body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent, and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache has a long history, having been used for at least twelve centuries. It is used most consistently by commercial artists for posters, illustrations, comics, and other design work.
A pen is a common writing instrument that applies ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Early pens such as reed pens, quill pens, dip pens and ruling pens held a small amount of ink on a nib or in a small void or cavity that had to be periodically recharged by dipping the tip of the pen into an inkwell. Today, such pens find only a small number of specialized uses, such as in illustration and calligraphy. Reed pens, quill pens and dip pens, which were used for writing, have been replaced by ballpoint pens, rollerball pens, fountain pens and felt or ceramic tip pens. Ruling pens, which were used for technical drawing and cartography, have been replaced by technical pens such as the Rapidograph. All of these modern pens contain internal ink reservoirs, such that they do not need to be dipped in ink while writing.
Watercolor or watercolour, also aquarelle, is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-based solution. Watercolor refers to both the medium and the resulting artwork. Aquarelles painted with water-soluble colored ink instead of modern water colors are called aquarellum atramento by experts. However, this term has now tended to pass out of use.
A permanent marker or indelible marker is a type of marker pen that is used to create permanent or semi-permanent writing on an object.
A highlighter, also called a fluorescent pen, is a type of writing device used to bring attention to sections of text by marking them with a vivid, translucent colour. A typical highlighter is fluorescent yellow, with the color coming from pyranine. Different compounds, such as rhodamines are used for other colours.
Wood stain is a type of paint used to colour wood comprising colourants dissolved and/or suspended in a vehicle or solvent. Pigments and/or dyes are largely used as colourants in most stains.
A thickening agent or thickener is a substance which can increase the viscosity of a liquid without substantially changing its other properties. Edible thickeners are commonly used to thicken sauces, soups, and puddings without altering their taste; thickeners are also used in paints, inks, explosives, and cosmetics.
Roller ball pens or roll pens are pens which use ball-point writing mechanisms with water-based liquid or gelled ink, as opposed to the oil-based viscous inks found in ballpoint pens. These less viscous inks, which tend to saturate more deeply and more widely into paper than other types of ink, give roller ball pens their distinctive writing qualities. The writing point is a tiny ball, usually 0.5 or 0.7 mm in diameter, that transfers the ink from the reservoir onto the paper as the pen moves.
Textile printing is the process of applying color to fabric in definite patterns or designs. In properly printed fabrics the colour is bonded with the fibre, so as to resist washing and friction. Textile printing is related to dyeing but in dyeing properly the whole fabric is uniformly covered with one colour, whereas in printing one or more colours are applied to it in certain parts only, and in sharply defined patterns.
The Parker Jotter is the Parker Pen Company's second and best-selling retracting refillable ballpoint pen. The first was the Hopalong Cassidy ballpoint. Since 1954, over 750 million have been sold worldwide. It is priced between $6 for lower end models, and $20 for higher end models, such as special editions. Its refill has a ballpoint tip originally called the T-Ball, with a unique textured surface that greatly reduces slipping and failure to transfer ink onto slick paper, known as "skipping." The technology is now commonly used in the pen industry. The pens are also a popular advertising medium. The external design of the Parker T-Ball refill is a configuration copied by many other brands of refillable pens.
Lamy is a German pen manufacturing company founded in 1930 by Josef Lamy, a former sales representative for Parker Pen. The company acquired the Orthos pen manufacturer to begin production. Lamy offers a variety of writing products, including fountain pens.
Fountain pen ink is a water-based ink intended for use with fountain pens.
The BIC Cristal is an inexpensive, disposable ballpoint pen mass-produced and sold by Société Bic of Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, France. It was introduced in 1950 and is the best-selling pen in the world, with the 100 billionth sold in September 2006. It has become the archetypal ballpoint pen and is considered ubiquitous, to the extent that the Museum of Modern Art has made it a permanent part of its collection. Its hexagonal form and design mimics a standard pencil and it is sold in six types of point and 18 colours around the world.
Eye liner or eyeliner is a cosmetic used to define the eyes. It is applied around the contours of the eye(s). It is often used to create various aesthetic effects.
Uni-ball and Uni are brands of pens and pencils, made by the Mitsubishi Pencil Company Limited of Japan. The brand was introduced in 1979 as a rollerball pen model, then expanding to the rest of Mitsubishi Pencil products.
Zebra Co., Ltd. is a Japanese manufacturer of writing instruments, established in 1914 by Tokumatsu Ishikawa.
Sakura Color Products Corporation is a Japanese manufacturing company headquartered in Morinomiya-chūō, Chūō-ku, Osaka, which produces a variety of stationery products as well a wide range of art materials. Nevertheless, Sakura is mostly known by its marker pens, such as the Pigma line.
Royal Talens is a Dutch company located in Apeldoorn that specializes in art materials. The company produces and markets its own products, apart from commercializing other licensed brands, such as Van Gogh, Rembrandt, and Bruynzeel. Products commercialised include acrylic paints, oil paints, watercolor paintings, brushes, markers, inks, pastels, pencils, pens, gouache, canvas, papers.
